Got to champ tier using this fake perish squad with a 40-9 W/L record.
While the team has many mons seen on Perish, you see no perish song on Primarina or Gengar. This creates weird mind games on team preview and people trying to gameplan for perish. I've wanted to use Calm Mind Primarina as it seemed underated lately and its been a beast, especially with the support of grassy seed + intimidate. Kommo-o is a great secondary setup mon against certain team comps as well, with a useful set of resistances into the dual weather teams.
Set Breakdowns:
Fairly standard Incin, but opted for snarl over a physical dark move. Snarl feels very good into such a special metagame, many teams will have 4 or more special attackers. It feels especially potent into psyspam teams. EVs hit the bump in spdef with HP investment to activate sitrus at half.
Sub Gengar catches alot of people off guard expecting perish and capitalizes on the fake out mons forcing protects. It is speed crept to be 1 speed faster than base 110s, mainly Raptor and Metagross. The HP gives it optimal recovery in grassy terrain and modest 10 hits the bump.
Miracle seed Rillaboom hits like a truck and helps to support the team with healing and Primarina with its grassy seed activation. Hits the atk bump with 25 adamant, rest dumped into HP and Spdef bulk with 1 speed.
Kommo is in a pretty good position in the meta atm, having a positive matchup into many of the dragons while fairy types arent nearly as prominent. Having a super effective stab move is very nice into Archaludon as well, one of the only mons in the format with this benefit. Leftovers and terrain healing help to undo alot of the clang soul damage. It is EVd to gain optimal leftovers and terrain healing while outspeeding dragapult with a Clang boost, and the rest is dumped into Spatk.
Raichu Y still feels like the best mega in the format providing a great mix of offense and support. Encore is really potent in BO1, with alot of people protecting turn one expecting a fake out. Zap Cannon helps to give speed control against alot of the mid tier speed mons in the format so primarina, rillaboom or kommo can outspeed. Encore also provides excellent support against archaludon even if its brought without its mega. It is EV'd to outspeed sneasler with the rest put into defensive bulk.
Primarina is the star of the show. Grassy seed with the bulk investment lets it easily live dire claw from sneasler and even miracle seed wood hammer from rillaboom after an intimidate. It finds itself able to set up multiple calm minds in front of charizard, hard tr and psyspam modes. Water and fairy coverage hits alot of the meta for strong damage, especially garchomp, mence, incin and zard. Modest 14 hits the bump and the rest is invested into defensive bulk.
Raichu, Prim, Incin, Rilla are the core of 4 I have brought to most matchups. The FWG core + Raichu matches well into alot of the meta and Prim really appreciates fake out, intim and terrain support to set CMs. Gengar helps with the fairies of the meta who can otherwise give this team some trouble. Kommo-o is a solid bring into Gambit, teams with multiple dragons and rain.
Sneasler, Floette and Venu/Zard (if they hit the sleep powder) can give this team trouble if they are well positioned.
I know this team is already known, and there are videos about it, starting with Wolfey's own, where he shows it in action on ladder. This post doesn't bring anything new for people who already follow the format closely.
It's aimed at players who are newer to Pokémon Champions, or who are just starting to play it now, and want a quick written breakdown of what the team does and how to play it, without going through hours of video.
Let's dive into it!
Mega Sceptile is widely seen as one of the worst mega evolutions in Pokémon Champions. Wolfey built his Louisville Regional team around it anyway. Before the event he took it from 372nd to 173rd on the ladder and finished Season M-6 in Champion tier, which is the top 300 players in the world.
At the 2027 Louisville Regional (October 9-11) he took the same six to 66th place with an 8-4 record. The sets in the screenshot match his official team list, and the team has two mega options: Sceptile or Tyranitar.
Why it works
Mega Sceptile gets Lightning Rod. It already resists Electric, so the immunity looks pointless at first. The point is the boost. Every Electric move that hits Sceptile gives it +1 Special Attack. Choice Scarf Rotom-Heat is faster than Mega Sceptile, so it clicks Discharge, hits both opponents and powers Sceptile up in the same turn. Discharge also has a chance to paralyze, which can matters a lot.
The whole team is ultra fast. Mega Sceptile, Scarf Rotom, Excadrill in sand and Sneasler with Psychic Seed all outspeed Choice Scarf Basculegion. That lets the team play aggressively, because most of the time it moves first.
Indeedee is the glue holding the team together. Psychic Terrain stops priority moves, so Fake Out and Grassy Glide do nothing. Follow Me and Helping Hand protect and power up the partners. The terrain also triggers Sneasler's Psychic Seed, which gives it a Special Defense boost and activates Unburden to double its speed.
Tyranitar brings the sand and the second mega. Sand mode gives the team an immediate answer to Fairy types like Floette, and Tyranitar covers Charizard and the weather war in general.
A few choices worth pointing out:
Throat Chop on Sneasler is there for Basculegion: basculegion usually sits safely in front of Sneasler, because it resists both of Sneasler's STAB moves. Throat Chop takes that away. Sneasler and Indeedee's Psychic can also double into Basculegion and get through the Focus Sash.
Trick instead of Electroweb on Rotom: some Rotom plus Sceptile teams run Electroweb as a second form of speed control. This one runs Trick, which can pass the Choice Scarf to a partner.
Overheat covers Rillaboom and Gholdengo. Helping Hand Overheat guarantees the KO on Rillaboom.
Sceptile often doesn't mega evolve
This is the part that surprised me the most. A lot of Wolfey's wins came with Sceptile in its base form.
There are a few reasons for this:
It is already very fast without the mega.
Once Overgrow kicks in, Energy Ball hits really hard. It's almost a Choice Specs Sceptile.
Holding the mega keeps Mega Tyranitar on the table. And opponents must play around it and respect it, even in games where he never uses it.
On turns where Rotom wants to Volt Switch, Sceptile must not mega evolve. Lightning Rod would absorb the team's own Volt Switch, forcing Rotom to stay on the field.
Sceptile mostly mega evolves when it needs a STAB Dragon Pulse, or once the fields has been freed by potential threats.
Open team sheets help here too in this sense. If the opponent's Garchomp is Modest, you know your Timid Sceptile is faster.
How to play it and threats
Garchomp is the biggest threat, so it needs to be cleaned first, most of the time to Dragon Pulse should do the job.
Specifically against Charizard plus Scarf Garchomp, the combo to bring is Sceptile, Rotom, Tyranitar and Indeedee, using Volt Switch to get Tyranitar in and win the weather.
The classic lead Tyranitar and Excadrill is at its best against teams without Intimidate, with Indeedee and Sneasler in the back.
Against Trick Room and rain, Excadrill usually stays home. Most endgames come down to Indeedee and Sneasler, where Helping Hand Close Combat cleans up.
Weak spots
Charizard plus Choice Scarf Garchomp, mostly because of Rock Slide flinches.
Golisopod teams. A Mega Golisopod rain team beat Wolfey 2-0 in round 6 at Louisville.
Tailwind teams with Whimsicott next to a big physical attacker. Indeedee has no Trick Room to flip the speed back.
Sylveon, Venusaur, Floette and hard Trick Room in general is hard to manage. Sleep Powder Venusaur can get really annoying and hard to handle.
This is a place for you to ask any quick question you might have that relates to VGC, which is the official double battle format. For questions about Single battles, monotype battles, other metagames, or even more opinions on VGC, please visit r/Stunfisk.
If your question is longer or more involved, feel free to make it its own thread!
Please be courteous and respectful both to askers and answerers.
This post will be archived 3 days from the time of its posting, and replaced with another post.
The main idea I started with was that I liked the idea of building a weather team, sand was the main weather that stood out to me (mostly due to Garchomp being one of my favourite Pokemon lol) and so I decided to build a team around that.
Obviously Tyranitar was the first pick after mega-Garchomp due to having Sand Stream, but it's weakness to ground makes it difficult to put next to a earthquaking Garchomp, so I made it bulkier and gave it protect to counter balance.
Then I brought in Flying-types that would be immune, I looked around online at what other people were using for their sandstorm teams and decided on Mirror Armour Corviknight, to set up tailwind and use Mirror Armour against Pokemon with Intimidate, which has after some Pokemon Showdown matches has proven useful a few times against teams with Incineroar. Then I made it bulkier, and gave it Brave Bird and Leftovers to expand damage coverage.
Excadrill is the member of the team I'm the least sure of lol, in theory, it's high speed plus Sand Rush means it can out speed most Pokemon outside of trickroom, protect allows it to be placed next to Garchomp, Brick Break provides coverage against normal types as well as getting rid of screens and reflect, and Sandstorm allows it to replace sand if Tyranitar goes down. However, I haven't really tested it much in matches, sticking to the other 5 mostly.
Gliscor is in a similar position as Excadrill imo, though I think that's mostly due to it being built wrong, I brought it on because of it's Flying type, as well as Thunder and Fire Fang expanding my type coverage, plus Stealth Rock and Toxic Spikes are useful to have, but after using it a few times, I definitely think I need to make it more defensive, and perhaps swap it's Life Orb with Excadrill's Focus Sash.
Finally I added Torterra for its resistance to ground plus protect allowing it to go next to Garchomp, as well as being more coverage for water which my team was definitely lacking. I then added Smack Down to counter Flying-types. After some battles in Pokemon Showdown, I'm thinking of switching out Rock Slide for Rock blast, because despite the RNG of it, on average it should have a higher damage output, though a lack of STAB makes me think I should instead swap it for something like Light Screen or Reflect.
After a few games on Pokemon Showdown, I've generally had success with this team, and a 7-6 win rate (easily tracked since I had to make a new account since I lost the login for my old one lol) though I'm not fully sure if my successes are due to the team being usable or just because I'm playing at the bottom of the ELO ladder, and vice versa I don't know if my failures are because of the team or my lack of experience.
This team was showcased by several content creators on Youtube, but I haven't seen anyone discuss it here yet.
Here's my thoughts:
- The use of Muddy Water on both Pelipper and Swampert seems to be an answer to Follow Me.
- Mixed Mega Greninja and specially offensive Swampert are things I would not have expected to be competitively viable.
- Life Orb on Talonflame is probably calc'd to kill a specifc threa with Dual Wingbeat, but I'm not sure which one.
- Aromatic Mist is an incredibly niche move, but I get its purpose: it's to make Archaludon extremely hard to kill in combination with the Stamina defense boosts.
What do y'all think?
Edit: the real EVs have not been released by the team creator. These EVs are just a placeholder.
Which type is best? I decided to give an answer to that by looking at how often teams ran a coverage move of that type at VGC events, namely Worlds and Louisville. For fun I also looked at the top 3 coverage moves of each type at each event.
Some analysis:
Fire is king in both M-B and M-C, largely thanks to Charizard's Heat Wave and Weather Ball, with Flare Blitz coming in third. But in M-C the share of other fire moves has climbed to ~1/4 from things like a coverage Flamethrower on Salamence.
Other top types and my explanations: Dark (Kingambit), Rock (4x damage vs Charizard), Fighting (4x damage vs Kingambit, super effective against plenty of other steel types).
Between M-B and M-C, the biggest shakeups have been in bug and grass moves. In M-B, the most common bug move by a mile was a Toxapex Infestation, but now the type has a healthy split between Golisopod Leech Life, Rillaboom U-Turn, and Volcarona Struggle Bug. With grass, Rillaboom's Grassy Glide and Wood Hammer entering the top-3, displacing Leaf Storm and Solar Beam.
Normal type is basically nonexistent in this format, outside of Fake Out. Note that I'm counting changed-type moves like Pixilate Hyper Voice as non-Normal for this.
Hey Reddit! I recently started recording some videos of my Pokémon Champions gameplay and thought I'd share one with you all. This is something new I'm trying out, so hopefully the video quality is alright!
I managed to rank up into Champion tier today and was lucky enough to capture the battle on video. I've really been enjoying the competitive side of the game and thought it might be fun to start sharing some of my matches with the community.
I'm not trying to make anything fancy out of this, just figured some people might enjoy watching some competitive gameplay. If there's enough interest, I'd be happy to post more battles as I record them.
Hope you enjoy the match, and feel free to share your thoughts!
I searched through EVERY large Tournament: from Louisville, to Victory Road October Challenges, to Recife, and underrated ones like Clasificatorio n.º 1, all to find new, and relevant teams for you all
I included EV spreads where I could find them
Full List of Tournaments/Ranking I Searched Through were:
Recife Regionals Top 16
Season M-6 Top 100 (Only the Full, Public Teams)
VR October Challenge #1 Top 32
VR October Challenge #2 Top 24
Louisville Regionals Top 64
Clasificatorio n.º 1 Top 24
And these are on top of the Tournaments I searched through before at the start of M-C (Such as the Global Challenge I, Baltimore, etc.)
Finally, I included most of the variations you could find (Such as Torkoal on the Garchomp Z Bulky Offense teams, or Soak Basculegion on the Raichu Y Garchomp Z teams)
Hope you find a team you love! 💝 And let me know any changes or tweaks you would make
If you've seen any of my posts before, you will know at least one thing about me: I LOVE CHIMECHO!!!
I know it's still very early in the season, so this isn't quite as cool as it would usually be, but I actually didn't even make it to Masterball at all during last season. Part of that was due to real-life circumstances, but a big part of it was also that I felt like my Chimecho teams just weren't working with the metagame shifts, and no changes I made felt like they were improving anything. (It also doesn't help that I'm not that good of a teambuilder...)
So, when I saw online that someone (Sean Stachorek, to be specific) brought Mega Chimecho to the Louisville Regional AND had a positive winrate (5 wins and 3 losses), I knew I had to try it out. I shamelessly stole this from them, 1-to-1, without making any changes. And I'm glad I did, this team rocks and is super fun!
My usual Chimecho teams have been solo-Mega, so while it makes me sad not to do that here, I just don't think it's realistic in this meta. It was usually workable when every team I ran into was Big Six Balance and I just had to get rid of the guys threatening Chimecho before bringing him in (or swapping him out when they show up), but I've found that there's too much going on in the meta right now for that sort of strategy. In this team, Chimecho probably stays behind more often than not, but when I bring him, it's because he's REALLY good into the enemy team. It turns out that most people aren't taking Mega Chimecho into consideration when making teams, who knew...
Part of the secret sauce in this team is Mimikyu. It can get Trick Room up pretty reliably, but the real technology here is Curse with Sitrus Berry and Disguise; it's very safe to do (and you can often get two off in one game... and I've even gotten 3!) and it puts your opponent in a very awkward situation, where they need to decide on whether they want to commit and take the damage or switch and give you a free turn (and lose any stat boosts they've accrued in the process). It goes through Protect, too, so if you know your opponent is going to Protect, this is a way to still get damage off on them. This combined with a very fast Will-O-Wisp under Trick Room makes Mimikyu very disruptive, and it can even single-handedly break through some very bulky Pokemon that this team otherwise struggles with (namely Archaludon and Golisiopod).
Pairing Will-O-Wisp and Curse Mimikyu with double-Intimidate and Fake Out Mega Scrafty can completely negate some physical attacking-based teams, where they simply can't kill you faster than they're passively dying.
It's really fun, and I encourage you to try it!
And, if you're good at teambuilding, I would like your help making it better! This team was built for an open team sheet tournament setting, so it's probably not optimal for the ladder.
One of the weaknesses of this team is immediately obvious: no weather or terrain control! I've found that terrain is generally not that disruptive to this team, but weather (especially rain) can be ROUGH if you're not positioned well, or if a key member of the team doesn't make it to the late game.
Another big weakness I've found: anything very bulky that isn't hit well by my special attackers (Archaludon especially, along with Golisiopod, but also, like, Goodra) is SCARY unless I've positioned basically perfectly, and if Mimikyu didn't make it to the late game, it's going to be hard to break through them safely. If they resist most of my special attacks, sometimes I just gotta hope this Draco Meteor hits and KOs.
This team is also very vulnerable to stat drops. It has nothing to discourage Intimidate or Parting Shot or Spirit Break, which can be pretty disruptive.
Hi yall! I am relatively new to VGC and have been having a lot of fun with Pokemon Champions though I am having problems generating teams.
Is there a formula for team creation? Like how many supporting Pokemon you should have? And any tips for slower game play? I have been playing hyper offense but it’s not much fun for me and want to practice setting up for sweeping.
Hello, I've been using a mega Baxcalibur gimmick team to climb the ranked ladder.
Here's my set up:
Alolan ninetales sets up snow and aurora veil
Armarogue uses lava plume to trigger thermal exchange
Baxcalibur cleans up the table
I've kept Mega Raichu Y, Sneasler and Milotic for coverage. But it does struggle against a lot of teams off late. Especially psyspam bulk teams. What can I do to improve my team?
I got H-Samu as my first ever shiny in this game. I know it's a monster in singles play, but im looking for ways to bring it into VGC. Since it already deals high damage and has decent speed, I threw it into this offensive I got. The goal is to have Samurott get at least two Ceaseless Edges off to deal big damage and layer spikes. I would lead it with Rilla or Raichu, while having Dragapult and Arcanine in the back as the clean up crew. I have indeedee in here as added support for Samurott by blocking Priority and providing helping hand or follow me support. Raichu is there to support via fake out and zap cannon to help samu take out foes that outspeed it. Rilla does Rilla things. I got dragapult because it's one of my faves and it's basically a Garchomp Z at home.
I reached Ultra Ball tier after swapping to this team and getting used to it
Pelipper: Rain and Tailwind setter
Mega Golisopod: With the reduced power of fire moves in the rain, it's quite sturdy and can thrash most foes with priority First Impression. It's also good for checking ice types, fairies, grass types, etc.
Archaludon: Incredible bulky special attacker with boosting capability in the rain with Electro Shot's risk free Sp. atk boost.
Basculegion: A powerful Swift Swim water-type attacker
Garchomp: It's Garchomp, what more needs to be said?
Corviknight: Honestly I haven't used him at all so far.
How to improve this team with my current box? Are there any pokemon I should recruit? What should I change?
Hey! I’m Andrew Wilfong/ milkwilfong/ milk. I’ve been playing Pokemon VGC since the first Regulation H ruleset in Scarlet and Violet and have been entering tournaments online ever since. This weekend I entered two tournaments, going five and two, with a third place finish, and the second one with a sixth place finish and I wanted to publish my first ever team report.
The starting point of my team was my frustration with psyspam and how I couldnt counter hard trick room with anything I tried. In SV Indeedee was my least favorite pokemon to go up against as it only has the weakness to dark and bug and the only viable dark type option that paired up well into Indeedee was Urshifu-D.
So when I saw Indeedee was getting added back so quickly into Champions, I scrambled to find a way to counter the team without using Rillaboom as it didnt fit into any of the team comps I had going on at the end of M-B, and I valued the priority blocking property that pokemon like Farigiraf, and one of my favorite pokemon that I used very often in M-B and M-A, Tsareena. Tsareena doesnt gel well with Rillaboom because of the overlap with physical grass types and Farigiraf just cant get it done on the offensive, and because I like playing with more offensive minded teams, I couldnt sacrifice more than one slot of my team on support pokemon.
So with that out of the way, I found myself leaning into a very offensive minded Incineroar set. This Incineroar can OHKO Gholdengo, Indeedee w/o colbur berry, Golispod-Mega (without rain), Rillaboom (without rain), and other common threats such as Farigiraf. I liked how Incineroar can still fake out Charizard-Y and the newly emerging threat Garchomp-Z in the psychic terrain, and the concept that you’re sure to run into a few times of Wolfe Glicke’s Nashville scarf Rotom-H. This Incineroar is trained entirely in its offensive capability so it can hit all those one shots with a life orb. The usual offensive Incineroar set usually runs close combat as it’s last move but I couldnt run that because I need something to do in end games where my health is in danger by a flare blitz + LO recoil and I knew that if this team were to work there would have to be serious fighting type damage rather than coming as a non stab hit from an Incineroar.
I knew if I wanted to counter Indeedee trick room teams I’d need to have a powerful supereffective physical hitter and the best mega in my opinion right now is Golisopod. With a swords dance it can OHKO most Salamence-Mega with an iron head. Bug coverage is surprisingly useful right now and of course while it's declined since M-B, Floette is still ever present, as well as the powerful Sylveon who is bound to pick up more usage as Joe Ugarte just won Nashville regionals with it. Golisopod is trained entirely in its HP and Attack and given a brave nature to make him fast in trick room. Incineroar and Golisopod are a strong duo on the field as Incineroar covers for Gholdengo which Golisopod can’t do much to, and can fake out while Golisopod sets up a swords dance. It is important to note however, Golisopod does NOT need a sd to operate at full power. It merely serves as a tool to clinch Salamence-Mega kills and to restore intimidate drops.
To round out the core, I added Indeedee with a colbur berry with maximum defense and hp to tank Kingambit, Incineroar, Tyranitar, and the every so often Blastoise with dark pulse. I wasnt scared off from adding Indeedee with Incineroar because a lot of the popular threats in the format can still take a fakeout in psychic terrain. Because Rillaboom is omnipresent, I needed terrain control and priority blocking, so Indeedee was perfect. Follow me is perfect for my secondary trick room setter, which I always knew I’d need. Its also extremely useful for swords dance Golisopod-Mega, and it was also appealing to me that Indeedee is the ultimate Sneasler counter. Now, I knew I needed more countering to Rillaboom because claiming control of the terrain just isnt enough, and if I dont bring my Golisopod-Mega and Rillaboom has rain support, Incineroar couldnt get it done on it’s own, which led me to my next pokemon selection, Pelipper.
Pelipper was up next and I needed weather control to wrestle back weather control from Big 6 comps as well as dual weather cores involving Charizard-Y. Pelipper appealed to me because Politoed was the preferred weather setter in the trick room due to the fact Pelipper learns tailwind. This approach just didn't quite sit right with me. Flying type coverage is ultra useful with Staraptor-Mega still being omnipresent, Rillaboom being omnipresent, and of course the demand for fighting types with Kingambit being a thing. With Pelipper being slower than Politoed, I decided to lean into an offensive set. I was originally interested in giving a life orb to Pelipper and having it be my Basculegion equivalent in TR but that didn't work out as it was too frail after a turn of recoil and my Incineroar was begging for the life orb. So to clinch a OHKO on Rillaboom, I gave it a sharp beak. I gave Pelipper also a valuable move that helps for protecting Golisopod-Mega, wide guard. I figured at no point would I ever actually need tailwind, so instead of giving it muddy water, like most people probably would, I gave it wide guard to protect from heat waves when Pelipper’s rain had been shut down by Charizard-Y. Pelipper is trained entirely in it’s HP and SpA and given a quiet nature.
Gardevoir was never obvious to me. I think it’s weak, in an awkward speed stat, and has a weaker ability in the grand scheme of mega evolutions. It was just perfect for what I needed however. It takes down my current number one threat at this point in the teambuilding process, dragons, and Staraptor-Mega. It also, as an expanding force user, synergizes well with Indeedee. I also just didnt have much spread damage on the team. Gardevoir is just a good bundle of stats and is able to output good damage while tanking hits. Gardevoir is trained entirely in HP and SpA with a -speed nature.
Finally, Gallade. This pick was from a scrapped team with a trick room mode. Gallade with an iron ball and sharpness can output ridiculous dps with the fastest speed on my team under trick room. It can OHKO Archaludon with a sacred sword, and with psycho cut can spam for crits. I always knew I’d need a fighting type and another form of trick room, as well as some sort of support for my other trick room attackers without dominating my team with another fully support pokemon like Indeedee. I looked for inspiration from Yuta Ishigaki’s 2nd place worlds team, when he used Iron Valiant with wide guard. Gallade fills a similar role, and with double wide guard, similar to his team, it is an ultra useful tool to deny Charizard-Y and the other powerful spread damagers in the format. Gallade unfortunately cannot protect, however it’s support package is so extremely useful, and it’s ability to then put out ridiculous damage with base 130+ power (with sharpness) sacred swords and psycho cuts seemed just too good to pass up on.
If I had to compare this team to any team, it would likely be Yuta’s. It abuses rain, trick room, and a powerful spread damager with a fighting type who can score critical hits boosted by field conditions. Of course Gallade is no urshifu, and Gardevoir is no Calyrex-I, but still, the idea is there. The comfort lead for me is Gallade and Indeedee, or Incineroar and Gallade. Both leads protect Golisopod or Gardevoir, as well as protect whoever wants to set up trick room, which usually Gallade is setting up the first trick room, and getting on immediately to spreading out sacred swords and psycho cuts (especially if they're boosted by Indeedee and get a crit). Golisopod always wants to be in the back because Pelipper never wants to come up front and you always want the switch to avoid being intimidated. Indeedee Golisopod is really the only viable lead with Golisopod because of follow me shenanigans, however it's just never really ideal to send out Golisopod first.
Gardevoir is viable to come to the battle if a dragon type or flying type (which ironically most viable flying or dragon types can get shot down by Gardevoir) but Golisopod should really be treated as the primary mega.
Final thoughts: This team when positioned well is dangerous. The obvious weakness is water types other than Basculegion and my loss in top cut in my top 3 result was to a Primarina which I couldn't do much to. Archaludon/Incineroar cores are tough too because if you don't conserve Gallade, then it's so extremely hard to take down either without Pelipper, which oftentimes will get left behind when facing an Archaludon. Incineroar feasts on Gholdengo but once again, if you can't conserve the cat, then Gholdengo is impossible to take down. Positioning is hard with Golisopod due to the emergency exit and less than ideal type in its base form, but if you can pull it off, then it's off to the races. This is why the parting shot got retained on Incineroar’s moveset instead of close combat. The goal of the team was to dominate control of the field, while OHKO’ing Rillaboom and hopefully counter Big 6, and I think I was successful enough in the teambuilder to do so.
I am a consistent MB3/MB2 player but hopefully getting deeper into pokemon and looking to improve and hit champs tier.
I really fell in love with the KG, basc, sneasler core, with mega dnite. This core finished top of the ladder last season in M-C, but was originally introduced in the 2026 world championship finals.
My OG team was KG, basc, sneasler, scarf chomp, mega dnite, and mega raichu. I found I did really well into any sun rain team, very well into trick room teams, psy spam teams, balance teams, and even normal golispod teams.
But with the recent development of SS female basc with focus sash on the rain teams, I found that matchup near impossible.
So after theory crafting for a little I realised scarf weaville is faster than ss basc, and outspeeds scarf chomp, and covers for venu in the sun! But then I thought that if I replace scarf chomp I lose the rock slide coverage I need against zard, and volcarona. So I thought about mega aero as my second mega next to mega dnite. But afterwards I realized in most matchups against scarf chomp and charizard mega dnite is a much better fit, so I got rid of mega aero and just put the most OP mega (charizard). He serves as a good fairy deterrrent also.
Finally, I am at the team you see now. Anyways y'all let me know your thoughts! and if anyone has advice, tips, or wisdom, on team building in relation to the work and process of hitting champs tier that would be great too.
Recently I have been having trouble with Mega Golisopod teams and after a very thorough look at the current roster; I took a peek at Drampa and its ability Cloud Nine. Regardless of the weather, max special attack Drampa with flamethrower does 109.8 - 129.6% to the standard Mega Golisopod stat spread shown on Pokémon Champions, and with just one Calm Mind; Heat Wave is also a guaranteed OHKO (doing around 127.4 - 151.6%). On top of this, Mega Drampa has an absurd 160 special attack stat which is higher than Mega Charizard Y's and on par with Mega Raichu Y's. I have also been wondering if running Roost on Mega Drampa could be viable? It has fairly decent bulk and Roost may help it stay alive much longer throughout the battle, as well as not running the risk of losing its flying typing due to not being one in the first place; however, I do not know the logistics of this quite yet and would love some input.
I apologize for my poor use of punctuation, I tried my best lol
I’ve been farming rage quits lol. Probably won’t get me far with open team sheets, but I’m doing better with this team than I am with any of my meta teams.
It’s built around resilient, stall-oriented archetype that relies on attrition, constant healing, and forcing opponents into lose-lose situations. I was wanting to think outside standard hyper-offensive VGC strategies in favor of grinding the opponent down mechanically and starting slow.
Any tips for how I can optimize this squad? Are Glaceon and Flareon useful here whatsoever?
Title. It's not an opener I run into super often, but I never have an answer to it either.
My go-to for TR openers is to either put them to sleep or use Roar, but Hatterene's Magic Bounce prevents that, and Indeedee prevents me from using Fake Out or uses Follow Me to protect the hat. What's a solid approach to this? It feels like a guaranteed TR for my opponent and I spend the game trying to claw my way back while getting steamrolled.
Hi everyone, this is my second post. By this time, i have already played some competitive, i've played the grand challenges and a draft league with my friends. However all my experience since launch has been in a closed sheet team format. I love gimmicky teams and making weird things work, however one of my draft league friends invited me to a local tournament that is open team sheet format. I was planning on using this team before knowing this info, do you think i should go on and stick with my team? Or go for something a little more conventional? Any suggestions are welcome! I also love perish trap and have a side team with m-gengar, m-swampert, politoed, archaludon, incin and vivillon, so please also let me know if you find the latter more consistent :)
I've been playing VGC on and off since about 2014 (Sorry for misleading title, doesn't seem discussion is an option). Over the years, I've always felt like team make up/expression in VGC has felt limited to a group of 6-10 pokemon that clearly dominated the meta often creating a "rock, paper, scissors" feeling. This being especially true when games reached a year into their cycle and we started getting restricted formats. In fact, for most of the mainline games, I would play VGC for the first year and then stop with the restricted formats for this exact reason.
With champions I have built and found success with Pokemon I genuinely love and want to use. Not because they're the strongest, but because I like them. When spectating regionals and other large events, the variety in team builds is exciting to see. Don't get me wrong we of course have a few Pokemon that see exceptionally more usage than others (incineroar, rilla, sneasler, Garchomp, Charizard Y, etc), but the "big 6" teams don't feel untouchable in champions. I feel changes to the move pools of some of these popular Pokemon have all been solid decisions by the people making them. This is the first time in years I have actually wanted to sit down and spend my weekend watching VGC with friends. The first time I've seen so many teams featuring underused pokemon making top cuts. I hope they can keep this streak going. It's been genuinely fun to play and watch.
I've been playing since Champions came out on mobile and I've been having a lot of fun. I made a post previously about VOD reviewing games and I want to thank the community for the feedback I received on the post.
Since the VOD reviewing post, I do actively review the games that I record. Games that I don't, I replay scenarios in my head to try to think of the most logical paths to victory based on what information is available to me. However, a lot of the time, I'm finding that there is always some branching path to victory that forces me to make a read, commit to a double protect, rely on a miss, etc. I feel like there are no/very few games where I feel like I'm in control of the situation.
I understand that RNG is a part of the game. I literally won a game today because I played to my out through a Double Protect in the end game. VGC naturally has a lot of variables in any given turn and reducing the variable of luck is part of the game but is the luck factor just something that I have to accept in every game I play or should I be adjusting my game plan/team to eliminate as many luck variables as possible?
(Get it? It's a pun on Nice? Sorry, i have to keep writing to meet the 400 character minimum to be able to post this. Anyone wanna tell me who their favourite VGC player is?)
I'm fairly new to this sub and VGC as well as I only played when Champions were released on Phone. My last played Pokemon mainline series game was back in Gen 5. Pokemon Champions regained my love for the Pokemon I had when I was a kid.
Anyway, I currently use the team used and built by Justin Tang:
I love Mega Delphox and able to end the season with 1.9m rating MB2 twice in a row. However, right now I'm currently looking for replacement for Mega Floette to have a better chance against Zard Y Sun Rain Comp, which has been the worst matchup for this team since Mega Blastoise/Delphox era due to how 50/50 that matchup is based on the first and second turn.
Right now Im thinking between Mega Salamence, Mega Dragonite, and Mega Staraptor. While I was thinking both Salamence and Dragonite will be much better against Zard comps, I think it will be much weaker against Sand Team as without Floette against Ttar/Mence, answer will be Sneasler and Sinistcha now. I thought of Staraptor to be tailwind support against Zard rain so I can outspeed Venu with Mega Delphox, and using Mega against Sand Team.
Any thoughts and suggestions are very welcome and appreciate it a lot!
